SOUTH AFRICA: Battle for gender equality goes on

Exactly 45 years to the day
yesterday, August 9th, 20.000 women marched on the Union Buildings
in Pretoria, then the administrative seat of apartheid. Their protest drew
attention to some of the most debilitating forms of gender and racial
discrimination. More than four decades later, the challenges facing South
African women, and more broadly our fledgling constitutional democracy, are not
very different from 1956. No doubt, at an institutional and legislative level,
progress towards gender equality since April 1994 has been formidable. Women
are now guaranteed constitutional protection against all forms of
discrimination. Underpinning this constitutional protection against
discrimination is a battery of legislation, most significant of which are
labour laws and the Domestic Violence Act. To some extent the consequence of
this progress finds expression in the growing number of women in leading
political and business positions.

Beyond that, the country still has a
long way to go before realising the objectives it has set itself. That much is
evident from the official Time-Use report released by Statistics
South Africa this week. The report shows that despite progress recorded in the
last seven years, gender inequalities continue to deepen under the weight of
the apartheid legacy. It is obvious from the statistics that for the majority
of ordinary working women, especially those in rural areas, the constitutional
and legislative progress has made little difference. They are still employed to
do the worst and lowest-paid jobs. The liberation of women will remain
incomplete for as long as they are tapped in this dire social and economic
environment. Without addressing this reality, non-sexism will remain an elusive
objective. And so will the ideals the 20 000 women marched for in 1956
(Sowetan).